Tag Archives: Surveillance State

Fear, fear and more fear

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It seems that some members of the government are not happy that legislation to allow innocent people to be sentenced to 42 days in jail failed. From the BBC:

[Security Minister Lord West] told peers that while some measures had been taken over the past 15 months to make Britain safer “this does not, I’m afraid, mean we are safe”.

he said: “The threat is huge. The threat dipped slightly and is now rising again with the context of ‘severe’, large complex plots, because we unravelled one the damage it caused to al-Qaeda actually faded slightly.

“They are now building up again. There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

Now, I am not fully sure what Lord West’s point in all this was, other than he is a supporter (albeit in strange circumstances) of the 42 day internment detention plans.

With this in mind, it seems that Lord West is trying the age old trick of making people worried about a nebulous threat with the hope it will cloud their judgement. For this to work, you need to whip people up into a panic, then explain that “doing nothing” is bad so doing anything has to be good. (Sounds familiar)

As is often the case, this is massively flawed.

For longer than I have been alive the UK has been under threat of a “huge, complex” terrorist plot. Since we became weak and frightened (and the terrorists stopped looking like “one of us”) there has been huge spending on the security services along with a massive increase in technical and legislative procedures to surveil and control the public. All of this has been done on the premise that it would reduce the threat from terrorists.

Despite this, we are constantly told by the government that the threat is as bad as ever with what appears to be a steady state 200 terrorist networks operating in the country. Often (such as now) we are told the threat is increasing. The “Terrorist Threat Level” in the UK has been at Severe for around five years now with no signs it will drop.

Nothing we have done has reduced the threat from terrorist attacks. Nothing we have done has reduced the number of terrorist networks. Even when the terrorists kill themselves (such as at Glasgow) the numbers remain the same. Nothing has changed for the better (*), in fact the more laws we enact the more we hear “DANGER, DANGER” and the more we are urged for more sweeping legislation.

When will we learn – it is not working. Doing more of it wont magically make it work.

If the huge anti-terrorist effort since 7/7 has made no perceptible dent in the terrorist threat, it really is time to find a different way.

However, as it seems the security minister (et al) are more interested in telling the House of Lords and the House of Commons the sky is about to fall on our heads, it is unlikely they have the time to think of a way to be successful. Instead, it seems they would rather pander to the readership of the Daily Mail and be seen to be “tough on terrorism.” The fact it is having no effect is, basically, irrelevant….

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* I am aware the security organisations may be working in the background to prevent attacks and destroy terrorist cells – that is what they are there for after all. However, if they are being successful, why hasnt the threat level changed and why aren’t we hearing that it is (even a little bit) safer today than it was yesterday?

Internment Returns

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Well, sadly, the craven government of the United Kingdom has surrendered to terrorism and taken yet another step in dismantling the fundamental liberties we have enjoyed for centuries. A basic principle enshrined in Medieval law was that the State should not deprive a person of their liberty without a trial. In practice this amounted to about 24 hours between detention and charging. In my lifetime this has increased to four weeks and now looks set to become six weeks.

Well done Terrorists.

If you are able, please try to find a clip of the BBC News 24 interview with Tony Benn. What ever your opinions on the man as a politician may be (for example, mine aren’t great), he pretty much summarises what people should be feeling about this travesty of justice.

Sadly, people don’t seem to be feeling this. If the statistics are to be believed 65% of the UK population supports 42 days detention of innocent people (which means the pop-survey I carried out at work this morning massively fails to reflect the UK population). I can only assume they all think the detainees will be some one else so the thought of suffering is alien to them. Even more worryingly, listening to the BBC Radio 1 street interviews in the run up to the vote showed me that 65% of the population do support it – but that is because they are beyond stupid.

One person who called in said 42 wasn’t enough and people should be detained “until they can prove they are not guilty.” Oh sweet Thor. Another said “there is no smoke without fire.” Lots of it was about putting the needs of the many over the needs of the few. Yes, I did just want to cry but I was driving at the time.

It seems we are reaping the rewards of a generation of bad teaching, dishonest politicians, media dominance and uncontrolled spin. People are no longer equipped to see when they are being led down the garden path and a total lack of civic understanding means that when they do suspect it, they no longer care.

If I could find a suitable country, I’d emigrate.

Identity Cards Will Cure All That Ails You

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Well, first off, thanks to Alun sending me the link to the monstrously funny site called “spEak You’re bRanes” and the simply amazing Twat O Tron, I no longer have the faintest idea if the garbage posted on the BBC website’s have your say section is even slightly real. Worryingly, I think that the gibberish there is actually posted by real people. I say real people, but now I am convinced they are actually employees of the Home Secretary posting nonsense in a thinly disguised attempt to change public opinion. I would hate to think that people this stupid would be able to use a computer well enough to access the internet.

One of today’s talking points is the prospect of introducing Identity Cards to this once free nation. Weirdly the BBC seems to have used the wrong tense with the title, but it is called “Is the government creating a ‘surveillance society’?” and, boy, has it generated some nonsense.

Take this wonder from “Joy Pattinson” (claiming to be from Switzerland, but that just makes me think it is the Twat o Tron):

I have no confidence in this “government” whatsoever! They are unelected, uncouth and incompetent. But I am for ID cards 100% but think they should include everybody over the age of 12 with so much knife crimes in the UK. ID cards are in focus in other European countries and they are not considered security states. But I prefer to live in on with security and less personal freedom than the other way around. ID card protect the honest and legitimates. Those protesting are suspect! Joy

What? Seriously this idiot is claiming that carrying ID cards will prevent knife crime. How, Zeus only knows. I honestly cant even work out where to begin with this bit of nonsense. And, as a point of note, the Labour Party were elected to power in the UK, it is down to the party to decide on the leader of the government.

“John from Wilts” also produces a strangely “Twat-0-Tron”-esque comment with:

I have 2 ID cards both Spanish. One has my name and address on it and my Spanish NHS number and my fingerprint on the reverse. The 2nd card is my medical card with my NHS number and date of birth. Should I have an accident anywhere in Spain when the card is swiped it gives my doctors name my Consultorio (Surgery) and access to my medical records which would include any time spent in hospital and the treatment recieved. What fuss people make about ID cards here is entirely childish and petty.

Again we have another magical use for ID cards to save lives. Quite why some one from Wiltshire thinks a Spanish health service card is any use to them – or different from carrying your British NHS card – is beyond me. Does the NHS even have a system which would allow this?

Oddly, this wonderful life saving use of ID cards is not one they could be put to – so quite how John From Wilts thinks it is relevant is beyond me. Is this an opening shot in the inevitable mission creep ID cards are going to suffer from?

People who support ID cards have a list of things they think the ID card will protect them from. The fact that none of these match the government claims is ignored. Weirdly, the government itself seems unable to quantify what value ID cards will give to our society. What crimes in the (say) last 10 years would have been prevented by people carrying ID cards?

Still, despite this, there seem to be people capable of at least some higher brain functions who support ID cards.

Why?

Deutsche malware

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A Nelson-esque “Ha Ha” if you thought that other EC countries might be havens where the seemingly outdated Euro-values (justice, tolerance, protection under the law, presumption of innocence, free speech) are still observed.

The government of Germany (that’s the combined former East & West Germanies. Remember East Germany? That’s the one with the Stasi and a population that was so avid for freedom 20 years ago) has approved what the Register calls a Plod-spyware law.

This handy law will give the German government the “anti-terror” powers to monitor private homes, phones and computers. Don’t you just love the TWAT? Any government in the world can now take any powers they fancy just by invoking its name.

Instead of tapping phones, they would be able to use video surveillance and even spy software to collect evidence. Physically tampering with suspects’ computers would still not be allowed, but police could send anonymous e-mails containing trojans and hope the suspects infect their own computers (from the Register story)

Wow, government spam that carries malware! Did I put enough exclamation marks there? Here are more!!!!!!!

These powers will only be used in exceptional cases, yada, yada, usw. Oh yeah?

There have been already been several recent scandals about over-the-top surveillance in Germany (Lidl, Deutsche Telecom, usw) Although, unlike the UK, at least the Germans don’t yet seem to lose personal data on a biblical scale. But, if the Lidl surveillance is any guide, they see information on the dates of surveillees’ menstruation as worth gathering

XanderG made a beautifully phrased comment on a WgyDontYou post a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve never understood how we’re supposed to find a needle in a haystack, by chucking in more hay. So many of these measures simply add dead-ends and wild goose chases to an already massive monitoring system. How are we going to catch anybody with real malicious plans? (XanderG)

If a government REALLY cares about preventing terrorism, it is blatantly illogical to collect massive amounts of information on the general public. It’s well nigh inconceivable how much information is flying around in a noughts-and-ones format.

For instance, almost every person I passed in a half-hour walk was having a mobile phone conversation – including three dog-walkers and two cyclists. (Cycling, in traffic, ffs. Unselfish people, trying to cull themselves for the good of the gene pool) Pretty well every house in my low-income street has a relatively-fast broadband connection. There are enough traffic cameras and public CCTV installations in a 500 yard radius to provide a year’s 24-hour broadcast reality tv on every known channel.

Scale this level of data traffic up to the population of the UK and Germany. Unless half the population is engaged in monitoring this hurricane of electronic noise – using the most advanced pattern recognition and cryptographic algorithms known to science – anyone who is gathering this data might as well not bother.

Well not if they care about detecting real social threats anyway. It might come in very handy for finding people who are spoofing their address to get their kid into a school slightly out of their area. Or it might catch someone who hasn’t paid their car tax or is claiming invalidity benefit while working (as the threatening TV and billboard ads keep telling us).

It might not seem to make sense but I have finally figured it out, with the help of the Matrix and the Church of Scientology.

Clearly, the earth is threatened by a monstrous alien intelligence that eats human data. It can only be kept at bay by feeding it gargantuan stores of bytes. Earth rulers are doing us a favour by collecting all our data and recycling it as xenofood to stuff in the gaping maw of the evil extraterrestrial overlord Zarg. They can’t tell us the truth because there would be a global panic.

A question for the lawyers out there – Sending malware in spam may not be a crime if the German police are doing it. But would installing this malware become a crime if the recipient of a German-police email were to forward the spam to, say, a member of the German government? The government of another country? A major corporation? At what point?

Cameras and Security

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A comment on a recent post, by someone apparently called Video Surveillance, got me thinking about some common misconceptions. In case you are wondering, I the link I munged goes no where of any value – it certainly doesn’t continue the “story” began in the comment.

The odd thing is one of the concepts the commenter (bot?) has brought up. Do video cameras make you safer?

With crime on the rise many people and business are looking for added security.

Well, I agree with this. There is a very strong argument that crime being on the rise is a misleading claim, but the fact is people think crime is on the rise, so they are looking for added security. Sadly, people who are easily misled into thinking crime is on the rise, are also easily misled over how to improve their security.

Video surveillance is one the top ways to improve the security of your belongings and loved ones.

Well, after a good start this amazing claim. Here I strongly disagree. This is the standard “marketing” crap pushed out by people selling woo to the public. Tell them they should be scared, then lie about your product solving their fears.

As with all the best lies, there is an element of truth. As part of a robust security package, video surveillance will improve your overall security, slightly. I am not sure what “top ways” means, but it certainly is not the “best way” or the “most cost effective way.”

Security is a many headed beast, and it will mean different things to different people. The best that can be claimed about video surveillance is that it offers a “deterrent” effect in that people who SEE a CCTV camera may be less inclined to commit a crime because they know the chances of being caught AFTER the event are slightly greater. The same can be said about a robust lock or a big thick door, however. A functioning, real, burglar alarm which is actually responded to is more effective than a CCTV system.

Here we hit a crux of the problem. For CCTV to be anything other an an “after-incident” investigation tool it has to be monitored 24/7 by people capable and willing to respond to an incident within an effective time scale. I could set up the best CCTV system in the world to monitor my house, but if I didn’t lock the door when I went on holiday it would be useless. CCTV is defeated by the simple expedient of wearing a hood – what sort of security system is that. Without monitors and responders it is the most pointless security system (do you really want to watch a video of someone breaking into your house?). With monitors and responders it becomes prohibitively expensive.

All in all, selling CCTV as “security” is tricking fools out of their money. CCTV has value in identifying criminals and will have some deterrent effect but it certainly is not a remotely cost effective method of improving your security.

If you want real, tested, cost effective security advice, my rates are reasonable 🙂